


The House Where I Was Born

by Deannie



Series: Cowboys and Zombies [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Gen, Horror, Old West Zombie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 11:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5583871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have no name of their own and people who whisper of them call them too many names to count, but I know what they are. They are from Hell. A sickness sent upon the world to burn the soul from Man. A sickness we must fight because to allow them to win is to become them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The House Where I Was Born

My name is Josiah Sanchez. I have been a soldier and I have been a man of God. I have been a killer and a priest, a damned soul and a saved one. 

I fear I’ll lose my soul again tonight. God willing, I will lose my mind before it. 

“I remember, I remember...” 

Hannah is singing again. It’s all she has left to hang on to, and the melodies ring out despite the cough and chill that wrack her. I knew when we left Carson CIty that she was too ill to make this journey, but I had no choice. Her mind has gone so far, and I am all she has to guide her through this world. And I had to leave. So she had to leave. 

> “I remember, I remember  
>  The house where I was born,  
>  The little window where the sun  
>  Came peeping in at morn…”

“I remember, too, Hannah,” I whisper, sitting by the candles that gutter and spit on the table. I ignore the pain from the wound in my arm—I’ve bound it up and stopped the bleeding and that’s all I can do for now. I check my guns again, though I know they are loaded and ready. Meanwhile, Hannah lies on the cot in the corner, lost in her mind. It and this rickety table and chairs are the only furniture, but comfort is hardly my first concern. Full night has fallen outside and I thank God I was able to even find this cabin—broken and hollow though it is—before they caught up to us again. 

And they will catch up to us again. It’s only a matter of time now. They are coming for me. I could leave Hannah here, go knowing they would follow me, the scent of me… But I cannot. I gaze at the wrapped wound on Hannah’s leg, left there by the hellspawn who still pursue us. Horrible and pulsing and red, the wound might kill her before the cough steals her breath for good. And I will be here to watch over her and see her safely to God. 

I left her to our father when I was young and foolish—left her to lose herself so completely that I could barely see my precious sister in the shell she was when I finally returned. I cannot leave her now, no matter the price. I will be here at the end, and that end will crush me as the heel of Satan never could. 

Even ravaged by the sickness creeping over her, Hannah’s voice is sweet and innocent. I envy her that. 

> “He never came a wink too soon,  
>  Nor brought too long a day,  
>  But now, I often wish that night  
>  Had borne my breath away…”

And this night will, dear Hannah. This night will see your end. I know it and I curse God for it and I wish so desperately that things were not as they are. She coughs long and hard and there is nothing I can do for her. The demons are coming for us and have been since we left the mission in Carson City. I have no provisions left, even the canteens are dry, and I expect if the fiends haven’t gotten to them already, the horses will be dead by morning. 

I watch her a moment, wishing I could soothe what can’t be soothed. To walk out into the night is a madness even my sister does not possess; the creatures would be on me the moment I cleared the candlelight. It would do no good, at any rate. Water from the pump by the stable could do nothing for the cough that plagues her and my own horror has driven hunger and thirst from me since first I laid eyes on these things at the mission. 

They have no name of their own and people who whisper of them call them too many names to count: a curse, the undead, _no muertos_ , epidemic, mad fever.... I know what they are. They are from Hell. A sickness sent upon the world to burn the soul from Man. A sickness we must fight because to allow them to win is to become them. 

> “I remember, I remember  
>  Where I used to swing,  
>  And thought the air must rush as fresh  
>  To swallows on the wing…”

You’ll fly yet, Hannah, I think, as I stand over her, examining features I used to know better than my own. I won’t let them take your soul the way they’ve taken so many others. I’ll stay. Fight. 

> “My spirit flew in feathers then  
>  That is so heavy now.  
>  And summer’s pools could hardly cool  
>  The fever on my brow!”

I reach out to touch her cold, dry skin and she flinches from me with what little strength she has, then tries to lash out with her teeth in her madness. We should have stayed in the city, hidden there rather than run. Sweet Hannah… If this is some punishment, God, for leaving her in her youth, why must _she_ suffer for it so? 

"Sing, Joe?” she whispers, ravaged and lost and begging with eyes already gazing through this world into another. “Sing.” 

I sing, my own voice ugly and coarse in comparison. I’m like a guttural Caliban to her dulcet Miranda. 

> “I remember, I remember  
>  The fir trees dark and high,”

Her breathing hitches once. It’s a long moment of perdition before she inhales again, and in the silence I can hear them coming near, inching toward the smell of flesh. True to my prediction, one of the horses screams outside. I pray its death is quick. They will not have you, though, Hannah. I’ll keep you safe. She stares through me as she wheezes, and I sing. 

> “I used to think their slender tops  
>  Were close against the sky.”

She smiles at me, a painful benediction, then closes her eyes and her breath stops a second time. I know it won’t resume. As I stand beside her deathbed, the sounds of damnation outside freeze my soul and I raise my pistol, my rifle close at hand. I do not think they will enter into the candlelight, but I must keep vigilant. 

Hannah is already cooling. I touch her face again, and the skin, fast turning gray with death, is ice against my hand. I bend down to kiss her brow one last time, as I did when she was a child and I was not a fool. The words of that old song flow from me with my tears. She’d love music to sing her to her rest. 

> “It was a childish ignorance,  
>  But now ‘tis little joy—”

As I knew they would, eyes past death snap open, and I raise my gun, placing it over the warmth of the kiss I just bestowed. 

The shot is loud in the stillness of the cabin, and I cannot hold the pistol any longer as I watch the bile black blood seep from what had been my sweet Hannah’s forehead. Vanquishing the undead thing that sought to take her soul gives me little joy, indeed… 

God forgive me. The song’s dying words fall broken from my lips as my knees give out, sending me to the floor. 

> “To know I’m farther off from heav’n  
>  Than when I was a boy.”

*****  
the end

**Author's Note:**

> The song used is "I Remember, I Remember." Words by Thomas Hood, music by Christopher Meineke.


End file.
